Greetings from my comfy office chair. Goodbye paying for internet at sketchy Western Union shacks. #perksofbeinganofficeelder.
The Elder who was training me was finally transferred on Thursday, so I am now an official Office Elder. W00t! This week was SUPER HECTIC though. It's transfer week. Three main things happen during transfer week. 1) Half the mission changes companions and cities. 2) A batch of new missionaries comes in from the MTC. 3) A group of missionaries finishes their mission and heads home. All of those things are stressful in themselves, but then you have to keep in mind that all of these things happen within a 48 hour time period. Wow. I don't think I stopped moving for those 48 hours. We didn't sleep a whole lot that's for sure.
At the beginning of the week we had an office staff meeting so that we could organize a schedule. In the office there are President & Sister Dibb, the two assistants to the President, the two office Elders, and a senior couple. We all had a schedule that was jam packed and we were using almost every vehicle we could and driving all over Milan. First I had to make sure that all of the apartments had everything they needed for the missionaries who were coming and going. That worked decently well. Then Wednesday afternoon came and we had to pick up the new missionaries from the airport. It was really neat to be there in the terminal and watch all of them come out of the security checkpoint. They were so jetlagged. It made me remember my first day in Italy. We loaded them and their luggage onto the bus and they drove off to the church to get training started. We helped shepherd them around from here to there and then we loaded them all up in the mission vehicles to take them to a restaurant. While they were eating, Anz. Stewart and I went back to the office to call their parents and let them know that their children are safe and sound in Italy. It was really neat to talk to the parents and hear how proud they were of their children and how much love they had for them.
Then we picked them up, drove them over to the hotel, and then after getting them all checked in (which was way harder than it should have been) Anz. Stewart and I went back to the airport to figure out why the missionaries arrived in Italy nine bags short. They gave us back seven of the nine and told us that the other ones would "get here when they get here." Then it was finally back to the office to finish up some odds and ends and then off to sleep.
End of day one.
After about five hours of sleep (not too bad really) we woke up even earlier than missionaries usually wake up, delivered the lost luggage, and brought them back to the church. Then it was back to the airport again where after a while we were able to convince them that there really were two bags still missing. Bags eventually retrieved, we brought them back just in time for the missionaries to head off to their new cities. THEN we had to go pick up the departing missionaries from the train station and ferry them and their luggage to the office. That took four trips in the van. Set up for dinner, eat dinner with the departing missionaries, clean up, bring them to the hotel, come back home, go to bed, never wake up.
It was quite the experience. I was grateful to be such an active part of everything though. I was especially grateful because this group of sisters that left were my sisters, the ones I was in the MTC with. Sisters only serve a year and a half, and this week was our year and a half mark. Can you believe it? It was so sad to send all of them home, but I was also grateful that I could be with all of them and see them one last time. They are a great group of people and each one of them taught me how to be a missionary through their examples. Good people. So yah. Now I feel super old without my sisters.
Then, after everything was over, it was back to life as normal on Friday. I felt really lazy. Not because I was, just because I wasn't constantly moving anymore! If you map our driving routes in those two days, it would make a full circle around Milan, several times.
On the spiritual side, just last night we had a lesson that I really enjoyed. We went to see a less-active young man who is about 17 years old. Anz. Stewart was telling me a bit of his history on our way over. He's never been too strong in the church and he has some problems dealing with peer pressure. They've taught him for a while, but usually they don't see much progress. Last night when we went over he expressed to us his desire to serve a mission! He said he doesn't know why, but the past few days he's had the idea in his head that he needs to go on a mission. He asked us what the next step should be. We opened up D&C 4 and read it with him verse by verse, stopping to expound on each idea. I felt the Spirit testifying and I'm sure that he felt it too. He commited to coming to church this Sunday and to praying to know if he should serve a mission. I'm looking forward to seeing his progress and one day seeing him out in the field.
Life is great. God is good. The Gospel is true. My testimony of those things grows stronger every day!
All my love, Anziano Simcox.
Picture this week: This is actually from Varese a few weeks ago. We went to a monastery built into the side of a mountain on a lake. Really neat. They still preserved it pretty well and inside the chapel they had a recording of some Gregorian chants. I liked it a lot.
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